Producer rules out more Blackadders

Blackadder producer John Lloyd has ruled out a return for the show, saying it would be "difficult to top" the existing episodes.

Lloyd, who is also responsible for shows including Spitting Image and QI, admitted he was initially opposed to setting the final series of the historical sitcom in the trenches of the First World War and said he was backed up by co-writer Ben Elton's uncle - a prominent historian at Cambridge University.

Speaking at the launch of Sky Arts South Bank Show, he said: "I thought it was a horrible idea to set it in the First World War."

Lloyd, who is the subject of the first film in the new series presented by Melvyn Bragg, said: "W e should leave it there because it' s very difficult to top where it was."

He also rejected claims by Education Secretary Michael Gove that Blackadder peddled left-wing myths about the war.

He said the show was "not a documentary ", adding: "I honestly wonder whether the Secretary of State has watched the programme at all."

Referring to the famous final scene of the final series where the cast went over the top on the Western Front, Lloyd said it was a "classically B ritish and patriotic scene where they all go over the top and do their duty and go to what we must assume is their deaths".